Crusade in Europe

by Dwight D. Eisenhower

  It became necessary to specify a date on which the whole ground organization should take on its final form—that is, with each army group reporting directly to Supreme Headquarters. We planned to bring Patton’s army into operation on August 1, and with this development the Twelfth Army Group, under Bradley’s command, would be established in France. Command of the First Army would then pass to Lieutenant General Courtney H. Hodges, who, during the early battling, served as Bradley’s deputy. However, what could not then be foreseen was the time required to effect the eventual breakout, the completion of the enemy’s defeat in close fighting on the Normandy front, and the eventual sorting out of army groups, each into its own main channel of invasion.

  Until this should come about and while all forces were operating toward the common purpose of destroying the German forces on our immediate front, it was clear that one battle commander should stay in co-ordinating authority over the whole line. Our estimate of the date that these conditions would prevail was September 1 and senior commanders were notified that on that date each army group would operate in direct subordination to Supreme Headquarters.8 Fortunately my personal headquarters was located so conveniently to the headquarters of both Montgomery and Bradley that I could visit each easily.9

  The July battling all along the front involved some of the fiercest and most sanguinary fighting of the war. On the American front every attack was channelized by swamps and streams and the ground was unusually advantageous to the defense. Many of Bradley’s subordinates made names for themselves during this period, clearly establishing their right to be numbered among the best of America’s tacticians. Our corps and division commanders, to say nothing of hundreds of more junior officers, generally demonstrated qualities of leadership and tactical skill that stamped them as top-flight battle leaders; the same was true in the armies of our Allies. And among our troops, whatever their nationality or flag, stubborn courage was an outstanding characteristic that boded inevitable defeat for the enemy.

  Just after the middle of July the U. S. First Army attained, on its portion of the front, the line—St. Lô to the west coast—from which it could launch a powerful assault. At that moment the weather, which had been bad, grew abominably worse and for the following week all of us went through a period of agonizing tenseness. We had to draw plans to take advantage of the first favorable break in the weather, and yet we wanted to avoid the constant alerting and shifting of troops entailed by frequent initiation and postponement of orders. Earlier in the war the period would have had a most serious effect upon morale and efficiency, but the American troops had by this time become battle-wise and they passed through the ordeal of waiting like veterans.

  Finally on July 25, seven weeks after D-day, the attack was launched, from the approximate line we had expected to hold on D plus 5, stretching from Caen through Caumont to St. Lô. A tremendous carpet, or area, bombing was placed along the St. Lô sector of the American front and its stunning effect upon the enemy lasted throughout the day. Unfortunately a mistake by part of the bombing forces caused a considerable number of casualties in one battalion of the 9th Division and in the 30th Division, and killed General McNair, who had gone into an observation post to watch the beginning of the attack. His death cast a gloom over all who had known this most able and devoted officer.10

  Progress on the first day was slow, but that evening General Bradley observed to me that it was always slow going in the early phases of such an attack and expressed the conviction that the next day and thereafter would witness extraordinary advances by our forces. The event proved him to be completely correct. In the following week he slashed his way downward to the base of the peninsula, passing through the bottleneck at Avranches, and launched his columns into the rear of the German forces. At this moment, on August 1, General Patton, with Third Army Headquarters, was brought up into the battle to take charge of the operations on the First Army’s right flank.11 Montgomery, at the same time, still confronted by German defenses in depth, shifted his weight from Caen to his right at Caumont and drove for the high ground between the Vire and the Orne.

  With a clean and decisive breakout achieved, Bradley’s immediate problem became that of inflicting on the enemy the greatest possible destruction. All else could wait upon his exploitation of this golden opportunity, in the certainty that with the enemy destroyed everything else could quickly be set right. His scheme was to throw every unit he could spare elsewhere directly at the rear of the German forces still in place between Caen and the vicinity of Avranches. In effect, he hoped to encircle the enemy forces, which were still compelled to face generally northward against the Canadians and British.12

  To carry out this general idea, the first change in original plans was in the reduction of the size of the force allocated for the capture of the Brittany Peninsula. Instead of committing to this mission the bulk of the Third Army, General Patton was directed to send back into that area only the VIII Corps, under Major General Troy H. Middleton.13

  As the enemy saw the American First Army attack gather momentum to the southward and finally break through the Avranches bottleneck, his reaction was swift and characteristic. Chained to his general position by Hitler’s orders as well as by the paralyzing action of our air forces, he immediately moved westward all available armor and reserves from the Caen area to counterattack against the narrow strip through which American forces were pouring deep into his rear. His attack, if successful, would cut in behind our breakout troops and place them in a serious position. Because our corridor of advance was still constricted the German obviously felt that the risks he was assuming were justified even though, in case of his own failure, the destruction he would suffer would be vastly increased. His attacks, which were thrown in at the town of Mortain, just east of Avranches, began on August 7.14

  The air co-operation against the enemy attack was extraordinarily effective. The United States Ninth Air Force and the RAF destroyed hundreds of enemy tanks and vehicles. The Royal Air Force had a large number of Typhoons equipped with rocket-firing devices. These made low-flying attacks against the enemy armor and kept up a sustained assault against his forces that was of great help to the defending infantry.15

  Bradley and I, aware that the German counterattack was under preparation, carefully surveyed the situation. We had sufficient strength in the immediate area so that if we chose merely to stand on the defensive against the German attack he could not possibly gain an inch. However, to make absolutely certain of our defenses at Mortain, we would have to diminish the number of divisions we could hurl into the enemy’s rear and so sacrifice our opportunity to achieve the complete destruction for which we hoped. Moreover, by this time the weather had taken a very definite turn for the better and we had in our possession an Air Transport Service that could deliver, if called upon, up to 2000 tons of supplies per day in fields designated by any of our forces that might be temporarily cut off.

  When I assured Bradley that even under a temporary German success he would have this kind of supply support, he unhesitatingly determined to retain only minimum forces at Mortain, and to rush the others on south and east to begin an envelopment of the German spearheads. I was in his headquarters when he called Montgomery on the telephone to explain his plan, and although the latter expressed a degree of concern about the Mortain position, he agreed that the prospective prize was great and left the entire responsibility for the matter in Bradley’s hands. Montgomery quickly issued orders requiring the whole force to conform to this plan, and he, Bradley, and Lieutenant General Miles Dempsey, commanding the British Second Army, met to co-ordinate the details of the action.16

  Another factor that justified this very bold decision was the confidence that both Bradley and I had now attained in our principal battle commanders. In Patton, who took command of the Third Army on the right immediately after the breakout was achieved, we had a great leader for exploiting a mobile situation. On the American left we had sturdy and steady Hodges to continue the pressu
re on the Germans, while in both armies were battle-tested corps and division commanders. They could be depended upon in any situation to act promptly and effectively without waiting for detailed instructions from above.

  Bradley’s judgment as to his ability to hold the Mortain hinge was amply demonstrated by events but the whole situation is yet another example of the type of delicate decision that a field commander is frequently called upon to make in war. Had the German tanks and infantry succeeded in breaking through at Mortain, the predicament of all troops beyond that point would have been serious, in spite of our ability partially to supply them by airplane. While there was no question in our minds that we could eventually turn the whole thing into a victory even if the German should succeed temporarily in this interruption of our communications, yet had the enemy done so the necessary retrograde movements of our own troops and the less satisfactory results achieved would have undoubtedly been publicly characterized as a lost battle.

  There were many points of similarity between this situation and the one that developed some four months later in the Ardennes, which resulted in the Battle of the Bulge. In both cases our long-term calculations proved correct but in the one the German achieved temporary success, while at Mortain he was repulsed immediately and materially added to the severity of his own battle losses.

  The enemy concentrated the bulk of his available armor at Mortain and continued his obstinate attack until August 12. By this time Bradley’s planned movements were developing satisfactorily.

  On General Bradley’s directive, General Patton had sent the XV Corps, commanded by Major General Wade H. Haislip, straight southward to the town of Laval. East of Laval it turned north on Argentan. The XII Corps, under command of Major General Gilbert R. Cook, was ordered to advance on Orléans on the Third Army’s south flank; and the XX Corps, commanded by Major General Walton H. Walker, was directed on Chartres. Later, the XIX Corps, under Major General Charles H. Corlett, also participated in the envelopment. The Canadian First Army was directed by Montgomery to continue to thrust southward on Falaise with a view to linking up with the Americans at Argentan, to close the net around the enemy forces still west of that point. Meanwhile the U. S. First Army and the British Second Army would both drive toward the trapped Germans to accomplish their rapid destruction.17

  The enveloping movement from the south therefore had as its first objective the destruction or capture of the German forces in the Mortain–Falaise region, while at the same time there remained the opportunity for sweeping up remaining portions of the German First and Seventh Armies by directing an even wider employment toward the crossings of the Seine River. The operation assumed this over-all picture: Montgomery’s army group was attacking generally southward against the old Normandy beachhead defenses, while Bradley’s forces, with their left anchored near the position of the initial break-through, were carrying out the great envelopments intended to trap the entire German force still between his marching columns and the front of the British Twenty-first Army Group. In the meantime the Allied air forces kept up an incessant battering against any possible crossings of the Seine so as to impede the escape of any German forces that might try to cross to the north of that river before the trap could be closed. Perfection of co-ordination in such an operation is difficult to achieve.

  By the night of August 13, the U. S. 5th Armored Division under General Oliver, a veteran of the African campaign, was in the outskirts of Argentan. The French 2d Armored Division under General Jacques LeClerc was near by and the U. S. 79th and 90th Divisions were in close support. The Germans were still fighting desperately just south of Caen, where by this time they had established the strongest defenses encountered throughout the entire campaign.18 The Canadians threw in fierce and sustained attacks but it was not until August 16 that Falaise was finally captured. Caen, by then a heap of rubble, had been captured on July 9.19

  By late July the enemy was bringing reinforcements across the Seine as rapidly as he could. Five divisions entered the battle area during the week August 5–12 but, as before, they were unable to affect the outcome.

  On August 13, I sent a personal message to the Allied command that, in part, read:

  Because this opportunity may be grasped only through the utmost in zeal, determination and speedy action, I make my present appeal to you more urgent than ever before.

  I request every airman to make it his direct responsibility that the enemy is blasted unceasingly by day and by night, and is denied safety either in fight or in flight.

  I request every sailor to make sure that no part of the hostile forces can either escape or be reinforced by sea, and that our comrades on the land want for nothing that guns and ships and ships’ companies can bring to them.

  I request every soldier to go forward to his assigned objective with the determination that the enemy can survive only through surrender: let no foot of ground once gained be relinquished nor a single German escape through a line once established.20

  With the great bulk of all the Allied forces attacking from the perimeter of a great half-circle toward a common center, the determination of the exact points on which each element should halt, in order not to become involved against friendly units coming from the opposite direction, was a tricky problem.

  In this instance Bradley’s troops, marching in the great wheel, had much farther to go to close the trap than did the British and Canadian troops. On the other hand, the latter were still faced up against prepared defenses and their movement was limited to the advances they could make through heavily defended areas. Montgomery kept in close touch with the situation but so rapid was the movement of the Americans that it was almost impossible to achieve the hour-by-hour co-ordination that might have won us a complete battle of annihilation.

  Mix-ups on the front occurred, and there was no way to halt them except by stopping troops in place, even at the cost of allowing some Germans to escape. In the aggregate considerable numbers of Germans succeeded in getting away. Their escape, however, meant an almost complete abandonment of their heavy supply and was accomplished only by terrific sacrifices.

  I was in Bradley’s headquarters when messages began to arrive from commanders of the advancing American columns, complaining that the limits placed upon them by their orders were allowing Germans to escape. I completely supported Bradley in his decision that it was necessary to obey the orders, prescribing the boundary between the army groups, exactly as written; otherwise a calamitous battle between friends could have resulted.

  In the face of complete disaster the enemy fought desperately to hold open the mouth of the closing pocket so as to save as much as he could from the debacle. German commanders concentrated particularly on saving armored elements, and while a disappointing portion of their Panzer divisions did get back across the Seine, they did so at the cost of a great proportion of their equipment. Eight infantry divisions and two Panzer divisions were captured almost in their entirety.

  The battlefield at Falaise was unquestionably one of the greatest “killing grounds” of any of the war areas. Roads, highways, and fields were so choked with destroyed equipment and with dead men and animals that passage through the area was extremely difficult. Forty-eight hours after the closing of the gap I was conducted through it on foot, to encounter scenes that could be described only by Dante. It was literally possible to walk for hundreds of yards at a time, stepping on nothing but dead and decaying flesh.

  In the wider sweep directed against the crossings of the Seine behind the German Army, the rapidly advancing Americans were also forced to halt to avoid overrunning their objectives and firing into friendly troops. The German again seized the opportunity to escape with a greater portion of his strength than would have been the case if the exact situation could have been completely foreseen.21

  While the bulk of Bradley’s forces was engaged in these great battles and overrunning France toward Paris, General Middleton’s VIII Corps turned back to the westward to overrun the Brittan
y Peninsula and to capture the ports in that area. We were still of the belief that some use would have to be made of Quiberon Bay and possibly of Brest. Middleton was directed to capture these places as quickly as possible. He made a rapid advance and invested St. Malo, a small port on the north coast of the Brittany Peninsula. The garrison resisted fanatically but Middleton was able, with co-operating air and naval forces, to bring to bear enough power to reduce it by August 14, although remnants of the garrison held out for three more days in the citadel of the town. Middleton then pushed on to the westward and reached the vicinity of Brest. The commander of the German garrison there was named Ramcke, a formidable fighter.

  Middleton vigorously prosecuted the siege but the defenses were strong and the garrison was determined. Any attempt to capture the place in a single assault would be extremely costly to us. Fortunately our prospects for securing better ports than Brest began to grow much brighter just after the middle of August, and in any event we had never counted on the use of that place so much as we had on Quiberon Bay. In these circumstances Middleton was directed to avoid heavy losses in the Brest area but was also directed to continue the pressure until the garrison should surrender.22

  I visited him during the conduct of the siege and surveyed the defenses that we would have to overcome. He skillfully kept up a series of attacks, each designed to minimize our own losses but constantly to crowd the enemy back into a more restricted area, where he was intermittently subjected to bombing by our aircraft.

  In the garrison was a contingent of German SS troops. Instead of concentrating them as a unit, General Ramcke distributed them among all other German formations in the defenses. In this way he used the fanaticism of the SS troopers to keep the entire garrison fighting desperately, because at any sign of weakening an SS trooper would execute the offender on the spot.